


Elixir

by Denzer



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Porn, Angst and Romance, Angst with a Happy Ending, Badass Rey, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, But Still Romantic?, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Creepy Snoke (Star Wars), Dark, Devoted Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Dubious Consent, Evil Snoke, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kylo Ren Angst, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Kylo Ren Redemption, Kylo Ren and Rey Are Not Related, Kylo is drugged but Rey is not, Loss of Virginity, Luke Never left and Rey has been with the Resistance for years, Mildly Dubious Consent, No Pregnancy, Protective Kylo Ren, Redeemed Ben Solo, References to Prostitution, Sex Pollen, Snoke Being a Dick, Snoke Ships It, Soft Ben Solo, Sorta post TFA-ish, Submissive Kylo Ren, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Virgin Rey (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:14:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26631208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Denzer/pseuds/Denzer
Summary: Resistance intelligence is clear: Snoke is taking girls from a mid-rim brothel. So far, they've all been returned a few days later, unharmed but inconsolable. Rey knows what this is, the Sith Trial of Passion. Those who are turned that way never return to the Light. But Kylo Ren is not complying and Rey sees a way to bring Ben Solo home.
Relationships: Kylo Ren & Rey, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 41
Kudos: 143
Collections: ReylOlds





	Elixir

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hellyjellybean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hellyjellybean/gifts).



“There is only Passion, Kylo Ren.”

He raises his chin, looks up to Snoke’s knees, but no further. That explains the girl. She’s held aloft, to the left of the dais, body strained so taught that the tendons in her neck form seams in her skin. A puppet, fighting strings.

“I am passionate, Master, about bringing the Galaxy to order, about the Dark Side.”

Snoke paces, as he tends to for lessons. Skywalker did the same thing, one hand grasping the other wrist behind his back, a stance that Snoke mimics exactly. Kylo wonders if this is deliberate, something Snoke does to throw him off-balance, like a memory walk.

“There are other forms of Passion, my boy.”

“I’m aware.”

Snoke stops pacing and Kylo feels the sudden tremor of cold as his mind is swept. Closed-fisted, he reminds himself to watch his tone. He’s not fully healed from the last session, can’t afford another punishment.

“I know your feelings on this. I’ve seen what you try to hide, the ones who call your name like your cock is coated in Spice.” Snoke is bending at the waist, a dark chuckle while he waves a dismissive arm over Kylo’s bowed back. Kylo can’t see it, still watching the floor by his Master’s feet, but he can feel the pressure of Snoke’s Force-energy, like repelling magnets down his spine. “It’s a weakness of yours we must root out. The Ren takes what it wants. As do the Sith,” he pauses, as if waiting for a contradiction. Kylo stays silent, biting the inside of his cheek, waiting for what comes next.

“Look at her.”

He raises his head, tries to keep his strained breath from the modulator, and stares at the girl. 

* * * * *

The intelligence report was hazy, language guarded, but Rey had gleaned all she needed to know from the downturn of Leia’s mouth as she set the datapad down with the very tips of her fingers, like it was covered in bantha shit.

The General had left the room after reading it and Poe, for once, knew enough not to follow her.

“How many girls, so far?”

Poe didn’t answer, rubbing his stubbled jaw, and waving in the general direction of the datapad.

Three girls, all returned to the brothel within two standard days, physically unhurt but still inconsolable. It was clear what was happening; Rey knew about Sith practices, the Trial of Passion. Luke had told her it was something of a myth, only used on those with the most to lose, the ones that clung to the Light until their fingers burned with it. Turned that way, there would be no hope of return.

But Kylo Ren was not complying. There might be a way.

Leia’s reaction had been abrupt, a sharp jerk of her chin and a hissed “Absolutely not,” so unlike her normal diplomacy that Rey had blinked. 

Finn had grasped Poe’s forearm, a nauseous wave of energy like a shudder through the command room.

“Rey, you gotta be kidding.” His lips curled high. 

Cowed, Rey had bowed her head… and stolen the Falcon.

* * * * *

“I have found you a special one this time, my boy. She’s untouched.”

Kylo rests his forehead on the ground.

“Master.”

He’s close to pleading, so he seals his lips, forgets to breathe, focuses on the slick slide of his skin on cold durasteel.

“There is something about this girl, some untapped potential, perhaps. I find myself interested in the outcome.”

Kylo swallows a bloodless groan, listens to the rasp of his Master’s feet as he paces the room. There’s a clinking sound, a pop, and he’s dragged upright, suspended. The broken skin of his back pulls taut. He reaches for the pain, sharpens, and watches Snoke approach with the small glass vial. The girl is behind him, held still but not struggling. Her face is blurred by the wilt of thin white gauze that covers her, floats from her crown to drape below her feet. She’s naked beneath. Kylo can see the bud of one nipple press against the fabric, the shadow between her legs. He can’t feel her fear, or any emotion at all, and he narrows his eyes before Snoke snaps his boned fingers and draws his attention.

“Drink this.”

Kylo sniffs the vial under his nose. His arms are freed but he doesn’t reach for it. If he could, he’d lift his chin away from the chemical scent. Already, he feels lightheaded.

“That won’t be necessary.”

Snoke laughs, cruel and hollow. “This will be your fifth attempt Kylo Ren. I deem some assistance necessary.” He says this while running the backs of his fingers lightly over the seam of Kylo’s crotch and it’s too much.

He’s a disappointment, he knows this. He’s been told it his whole life. Except for there. The one part of him that he counts on. When he fails, when he bows his head instead of fighting, when he needs, desperately, to hear approval, it is the only thing he knows won’t fail him. He bares his teeth at his Master, growling so that flecks of his spittle spatter Snoke’s arm.

There’s a gasp from beneath the veil, a voice he would recognise anywhere, and then darkness, solid and complete.

* * * * *

Rey watches Kylo drop, a wires-cut, bone-cracking fall. Snoke takes his time patting at his golden sleeve and then sweeps his hand absently to fling Kylo’s loose form onto a metal slab in the centre of the room. He ignores her entirely, strolling in Kylo’s wake to twist his face and pour the contents of the small vial into his squeezed-open mouth.

After, he runs the tip of his fingers down the centre-line of Kylo’s bare chest, trailing down his stomach to tap the point of his hip through the leather of his pants. The affectionate smile that he gives the unconscious man rolls in Rey’s stomach. When Snoke turns to her, lowers her to the floor, she keeps her eyes on Ben’s feet, soles dark and speckled with dried blood.

“You think me merciless,” Snoke tells her, amused, and she raises her chin like a reflex.

“I think you’re a monster.”

He laughs and crooks his fingers. Rey feels the pull in her centre before her body sweeps forward, tumbling into the side of the metal altar with a force that stops her breath and coils her in twists of thin fabric. She stays there, huddled on the floor under the outcropping of Kylo’s limp hand, and watches Snoke open the doors. He pauses beneath them, turns his head so Rey can see his thin smile.

“It takes about three minutes for the elixir to come into effect, child. Then, he’ll show you the meaning of that word.”

The doors close with a hiss and Rey scrambles to untangle the gauze, re-wrapping her body to cover herself. She scans the room for anything she can use to tie him down, but the cell is empty, barring the engraved metal slab. Hurriedly, she tears the end of her makeshift robe and snakes a figure-of-eight between Kylo’s wrists, pulling tight. There’s nothing to secure it to so the ends flutter uselessly as he comes to.

Fear, as strong as her own, fills the Force and she backs as far away as she can, drops out of his eye-line. Two minutes, that’s all the time she has left.

* * * * * 

“What are you doing here?” he asks before his eyes are even open.

Chemical taste and aching limbs and heat in his belly and everything fuzzy at the edges but he knows it’s her. She’s really here, in this room, with him. He knows the scent of her on the Force, the sound of her breath, the tremble that comes to his fingers when she’s near.

“You’ve been poisoned.”

It’s strange to hear her voice without the curving echo. He sits up, looks at his wrists, tied with the same fabric she’s wrapped herself in, and the liquid warmth in his stomach drops lower. She must be able to feel the pulse of his fear, wrapped tight around growing arousal.

“I begged you not to come, Rey. How could they let you?”

She huddles against the doors, knees tucked tight against her chest and tanned arms hugging her shins. He flexes his hands and the ties at his wrists pull tight. She doesn’t have to tell him. She’s shielding herself well but he still catches the flash of her guilt. She’s not supposed to be here and, worse, she’s here alone.

“How long do I have?” he asks, eyes on the line of her jaw, imagining how smooth it would feel against his tongue.

“About a minute.”

She sounds terrified. Abruptly, Kylo twists toward her and stretches out his hands, pushing against the door behind her with everything he has. He shoves so hard that Rey ducks under the pressure of it, but it won’t budge. When he doesn’t stop, drawing from a deep well of pain he funnels into power, Kylo feels the throb of her fear. She recognises the strength of the flow of Force above her and there's a flutter of doubt about her decision to come here. Her questions are fast and breathless.

“Do you know what he gave you? How long it lasts? Can it be controlled?”

Kylo stops trying to break the doors open and rubs the heel of his thumbs into his eyes, then looks hard at the ceiling.

“I know what it is. It lasts until I come, and no, it can’t be controlled.”

He hears her muted gasp, her next question like a brand at the very front of his mind.

_He’s used it before?_

_Not on me._

He hides everything then, making his mind a blank wall so Rey can’t see the girls, their pupils blown wide with synthesized lust, or hear the half-crazed words they’d moaned in his ear as he’d pushed away from them. He’s nauseous and panicked, half-hard already, and there is no time left.

“Kylo, do you want to leave this place?”

She’s standing again when he looks at her, though he hadn’t heard her move. The line of her collarbone and the slope of her neck and shake of the fabric as she trembles in place and he’s burning suddenly, mouth tight and blood rushing, and the plea is coming from him before he can stop it.

“Please help me.” He’s not talking to her. It’s the Force he’s calling on, it’s his grandfather. He’ll call to anything if he can stop what’s about to happen.

He blinks and she’s there, right in front of him, her hips against his knees, and he’s leaning forward before he can stop himself. Her skin is hot, fresh like river water, and the pump of her blood quickens under his tongue when he licks the skin of her throat.

Lucidity, fluid and fast, makes him wrench back to look at her. “You need to run… hide… knock me out...“

She shushes him, holds out her arm to show him a round, red mark on the inside of her forearm. “Will you come with me?”

Her mouth is perfect white teeth and dark pink lips that he wants wrapped around his cock-

Rey slaps him, cheek-burning hard.

“Kylo, do you want to leave with me, now, today?”

“Tell me again,” he mumbles, shaking his head, trying to free himself, “What you said before. Was it real? Did I imagine it?”

* * * * * 

He’d appeared on the floor outside Leia’s office, naked but for tattered arms wraps, curled tight with the red welts of his back to her. She dropped to her knees beside him, pressed a shaking palm to his shoulder.

“What happened?”

The tight scramble shocked her as he pulled away, flattened himself against the wall as if her saber had been pressed to his neck. Wild-eyed, he covered himself with one hand and pointed at her with the other.

“Stay back.”

She raised her hands, willed him to see her empty palms, then crawled closer. A hum reached her, a noise made low in his chest, chained there like fury. She ignored it.

“What happened, Kylo? Why are you hurt?”

He stared at something to his left, flinching incoherent. “I can’t do it. Not this. I won’t.”

Rey checked the corridor, listened hard for any sounds from the room beyond, shuffled another step or two on her knees, and reached for his shoulder. She’d barely touched him before he grasped her arm, tight enough to bruise. 

“Give me a weapon, anything sharp.”

Rey stared, waiting for him to look away, to regret what he’d just said. When he didn’t, she pushed him.

“Why do you need something sharp?”

“You know why.” There was a flash of him sinking a shard of metal into the underside of Snoke’s jaw, flat determination. But Rey knew a desperate plan when she saw one. He’d be snuffed from existence before he’d had a chance to raise his hand.

She had touched him once before, shaken him awake when she’d found him sprawled over the side of her bunk, hand dipping beneath floorboards. He’d mumbled at her, soft and closed-eyed, and rolled over into the wall, disappeared beyond it, and left her wanting to trace her hand over the bare stone.

Instead, she’d lain still, lulled by the sound of his even breath until her ribs moved in time with his. Her hand had slipped beneath the sheet, half-dreaming, soft and slow. She didn’t hear him wake, didn’t feel him turn. But through half-lidded eyes, she’d watched his shadow loom over her and his gaze had locked onto hers. When she didn’t stop, he’d reached for her. The rhythmic stroke of his fingertips over her temple and cheek had shuddered through her and he’d kissed her after, the barest touch at the corner of her open mouth. She’d slept in sheets that smelled like him and had never spoken of it again.

But touching him now felt like burning in her palm, fierce and painful. She clasped his other shoulder, leaned over him until he stopped staring at the spot beyond them and held her gaze.

“Kylo, I know what he’s trying to do to you. Let me help you. Tell me where you are.”

His face was closer than it had been that night. When he looked up, the memory of her quickened breath was in her mind, jolted there like he couldn’t keep it hidden. It was gone in an instant but Rey’s cheeks still warmed. Before she could demand an answer, he looked away again, wincing at something she couldn’t see. It was pity, reluctant but strong, that Rey felt from him.

“Use my thigh, little one,” he said and his mouth twisted, voice frayed through teeth that were set against each other, “I can’t help you, but I can give you that.” He wouldn’t look at Rey after he spoke, his neck twisted awkwardly, and Rey could feel someone there, on his other side.

_Rey, you need to leave_.

A moan, echoing, from someone in the room with him, heard through Kylo’s scrolling mind.

“I’m not leaving you.”

Impulse, the same draw of need he’d been pushing down so she wouldn’t see it, made Rey straddle his lap. She placed herself between him and whatever he was allowing to happen, blocking his view of it. He looked up, eyes so wide that his forehead creased.

“Do you remember that night?” she asked, holding his face between cool palms. He closed his eyes in response and she watched him lift away, soaring into a memory so crisp she could feel the rough sheet against her skin.

“I remember.”

He’d been covering himself with one palm and he shifted then, bringing his other hand there with a flustered groan as she carried on, determined.

“Every time, since then, it’s what I think about. That look on your face. Nobody ever looked at me that way.”

He gave her that same expression, the exact one she clung to on the days she couldn’t take another moment of doubt and responsibility and empty, unchanneled power. It sent a wave through her, furious aching, and she covered his eyes with one hand, bringing her mouth to his ear. Beneath her, his leg was moving in uncontrolled rapid jerks, and Rey tried hard to focus her thoughts.

“I can feel you sometimes, when you’re dreaming. I wait for it when our sleep cycles line up. I love the ones where you’re swimming. I feel like I’d know how to do it now, you dream of it so often.”

Rey ignored the sudden tug of his thigh and pressed her forehead to his temple as he sighed a frustrated, choked noise.

“Those are the ones you like. I bring myself there, so I can feel you.”

She brought her free hand to the back of his neck, soothing circles, and kept his eyes covered. She wasn’t sure how her voice was holding so steady because there was pain in her chest and burning in her throat and she’d never felt the urge to run more viciously than she felt it then.

“When you’re angry or upset, it feels like tingling in my palms. I rub my hands together but that never helps. Sometimes, I put my mouth there, like I’m kissing it better. Do you feel it when I do that?”

He nodded and Rey was sure she felt the shudder of a sigh where her stomach pressed to his chest. The jump of his leg grew unbearable, knocking his thigh against hers and she pressed her lips to his ear.

“I’ll kiss it better now,” She brought her mouth to his temple, trembling. She could feel the Bond slipping and her hold on him tightened in response, “And then I’ll come find you.”

His hands were suddenly wrapped around her upper arms, pulling her away from him, all trace of fear or sadness flattened in an instant.

“Rey, you can’t come here. Promise me, _promise me_ , you’ll stay away-“

His fingers were so tight she’d felt them for hours after, all the way through hyperspace, as she made her way to a brothel full of terrified young women at the outskirts of the mid-rim.

* * * * * 

The second slap doesn’t work.

His confusion morphs to hunger when her palm meets his reddened cheek and he licks the inside of his lower lip with a grin that doesn’t reach his eyes. There’s a pulse of Force energy directed at his wrists and then she’s caught in too-strong arms and lifted from the floor. She would fight, she should, but his mouth is softer than she’d imagined it would be and there is a sweetness to the way he’s cradling the back of her head that makes it hard to push him back.

He breaks the kiss to run his tongue along her neck and her head tips to allow it, so his fingers adjust to take more weight in his palm. His free hand is roving from her hip to her breasts, long thumb curving over the rise of her nipple through layers of fabric. It’s only then she realises he’s holding her with the Force, entirely still, and when she tries to break from it, he bands her tighter, shoving his hips roughly into her stomach with a soft growl. His fingers squeeze, a jolt from her breast to her centre like a string pulled taut, and Rey can feel the edge of his teeth at the crook of her neck.

She had seen a Lothcat once, its limp prey held in its jaws. As it shook its head, the small furry thing in its teeth had swung wildly from side to side. When the Lothcat stalked away, Rey had seen the prey’s paw clench tight, still alive in the grip of its own demise. She knows now, exactly, how that feels.

Wildly, she struggles against Ben’s hold, small, distressed sounds escaping that only serve to stir him up further. He presses her tighter against him, pulsing, until his hand is fisted in her hair and his breath harsh in her ear. It’s too much, too fast and all the surety she’d had when she’d left the Resistance is pulling away from her now.

He’s mumbling as he brings her hand to his cock, uses the Force to move her fingers over the soft leather so she can feel the heft of it. She can’t make out what he’s saying, heated rambling with only a word or two coherent. He rights her suddenly, pulling her face to his and when he’s finished licking into her mouth, he trails his tongue from her lip to her ear and whispers, “I’ll ruin you,” so tenderly that it sounds strangely like “I love you.”

When he reaches between her legs, Rey is glad he is holding her. Her knees are already shaking and she’s not sure she could hold herself up anymore. Desperate, she tries to reach him. This is why she is here, because there is no-one else who could reach him now. After more than a day shielded from the Force, it is trickling back slowly but the Bond blooms like ion-fire when she calls on it. The drug has stripped him and there’s no barrier at all. She can wrap herself around the core of his frenzied thoughts without effort.

_Ben_.

He pulls back, frowning so deep his eyes are shadowed by it. His hands start to shake and she can feel him fighting it. Out loud, he whispers a broken “-’m sorry,” and then she hears him.

_I can’t stop._

_I know, Ben. Tell me you’re done with this. Tell me you want out._

_You know I do._

His Force-hold has dropped and Rey slips her hand from his shoulder to press her thumb hard into the fresh scar on her arm, healed badly with a trick she had only just learned. Beneath her skin, the dull gleam of a homing beacon pulses blue. She’d stolen it from Leia’s office, deconstructed the pretty bracelet until the small mechanism beneath had shone like a wish in her hand. But that is the least of her sins.

She’s lifted suddenly, a wild swing that splays her flat on the metal slab and he’s looming over her. There’s no coherence to his thoughts and Rey has to pull away because the sway of the drug is so strong it’s making her dizzy. He jumps onto the table, knees on either side of hers. His hands are everywhere, fluffing tufts of thin material as he pushes it up her body, entirely focused on his task. There’s the tug and tear where the shift is banded around her chest and then sudden cool air on her stomach and breasts. When she puckers her mouth, trapping a whimper, Ben pauses, carefully placing his hands flat on the table on either side of her head. His entire body is rigid and Rey resists the urge to look down between them.

_Force-stun me._

He’s lucid, fighting hard for it.

She could. She could snip the thread of his consciousness like she’d been shown and wait for rescue. He’d wake up in agony, strapped to a medbay cot, and be forced to endure another humiliation. But that’s not what Rey wants. Here on a cold slab in the middle of an enemy fortress, she knows why she has come.

_No._

Ben squeezes his eyes shut and there’s blinding panic in a surge that washes over her. The drugs swells so much she can taste the bitterness of it on her tongue. She has no choice but to shutter the Bond, watching from a distance as his mind struggles to right itself.

He shifts suddenly, kicks her leg to the side with a heavy roll of his knee. There’s fumbling as he pulls himself free with one hand. For a moment, she thinks he might sink down, push into her. She grasps his shoulders, preparing for pain. But his hand is there instead, fingers glancing over folds of soft, spark-sensitive skin.

Wetness, hers, smeared over her, and a flash of heat so bright it lifts her head from the table. Ben grunts in response. She’s panting as he brings his mouth to hers, a sweep of tongue that she can’t focus on, the pull of her bottom lip as he sucks it. Rey bucks her hips, moans a long sound that she can’t even try to stop.

It doesn’t feel like that night. It’s his hand there now, instead of hers, the rough pads of his fingers sliding. She pushes at his wrist, holds it tight as he draws fire-soft circles. She tries again to find him in the cloud of the chemical. He’s there, deep beneath it, but just as dazed as she is now.

There aren’t any words in the Bond, but it’s still there, an understanding from both of them. If Rey had to write it down it would sound like, _Do you want this as much as me?_ and _Yes_ but she’s not sure which of them is asking or answering.

Ben’s thick middle finger slips lower, circles, and then slowly pushes in. Instead of trying to form words, Rey shoves the feeling at him and pleads for him to respond. His shoulder ripples and a second finger pushes, easing her open further, and there is shock from both of them, electric and heavy. His response is a current that pulls through her whole body. He moves his hand, slower than she thought he could, and the base of his thumb is skimming high as his fingers dip inside her, rhythmic and achingly unhurried. There is the soft brush of the frayed fabric she’d used to tie him on her inner thigh with every stroke. She’s spiralling, tucking her forehead into his neck, and her hips are moving on their own, changing the pace to what she wants. She calls his real name when she comes, breath held and whispered high-pitched, squeezing shaking arms around him.

A tremor rolls down his back and he leans on his elbow, easing her flat and shifting his weight to move her other knee wide. Rey brings her hand down between them, tracing the curves of his abdomen. The first stroke is tentative and then another, firmer, elicits a trim moan before he grasps her wrist and shoves it to the metal over her head. He’s gone, the last of him burned up in her touch. He hooks his hips and presses hard, sliding inside her with a sudden ridged thrust. He’s so far from her now and the stretch is so much and so sudden that her knees squeeze hard to his sides, slowing him.

“Don’t fight,” he’s shuddering above her, the effort of holding on unbearable. “Please. I don’t want to hurt you.”

She shifts her hips, adjusting to the size of him, how full she feels, searing hot and sore and still, somehow, so good. She lets him see it; how right it feels, even though it’s all wrong. She sends him a line of memories; how she had thought of him since that night, how she had touched herself and imagined his face, how she had hoped.

She can’t see with the brightness of his thoughts and then he’s moving, fast and hard, panting next to her ear. He still has her wrist in his fist and she flexes her fingers until he takes them, slips them between his own where the webbing is still damp from her. She brings her other hand to his hair, raking her fingers through it. When she shifts her hips, trying to right herself under him, the angle changes and both of them moan. He’s hitting something now, with every stroke, building a pressure at the base of her spine that’s foreign and frightening. She clutches his fingers, grips his hips with her knees but he’s too far gone to slow now. Instead, he rears up higher over her, pressing his hand harder into hers and watching as her mouth opens and closes, her head twisting from side to side. There’s something he’s waiting for; she can tell by the expectant look he gives her as he speeds up and the heat at her core seems to double all at once. She can’t stop herself from crying out, the force of him, the slide and grind that feels as desperate as she is. He’s so far from the control she’s used to from him.

When it happens, it’s all at once. A downward pull and a shift of all that concentrated heat, moving outwards in a rush. Her fingers stretch wide in his grip. He grins at it, drives harder. Her throat burns and she’s calling his name again, though she’s not even sure which one she’s saying. He follows her over, vicious pumps that she only feels because her feet have come together at his lower back and he’s tugging them apart with the strength of his thrusts. He’s loud, relief and desire and pleasure all mixed until it sounds so wild that Rey wonders if he will bite her, if that might bring her back down from this floating place. She thinks of the Lothcat again, only this time, she doesn’t feel like prey.

When he slows, he leans over her, back curved so he doesn’t crush her, with his forehead pressed to the metal beside her head. He’s easier to find now, the fog of elixir fading fast, replaced with a growing sense of dread. She snakes her hand from his fist and soothes over his raw back. There’s the faint outline of his lips along her shoulder.

_Did I hurt you?_

She hums in response, presses lightly between his shoulder-blades so his weight is forced into her and he can feel her shake her head against his neck. It seems like hours before she can bring herself to ask him.

_Did you mean it?_

He huffs a cool breath through his nose.

_Yes. Are you ready?_

There is the dim sound of blaster fire somewhere beyond the room, a far-off siren is sounding faintly, and he’s pulling from her. She’s not ready. She could lie here for another hundred years and still not want to move.

Instead, she nods, angling so he can give her one last kiss, their first, she supposes. It’s slow and sweet.

He helps her re-wrap the torn cloth around her chest, long fingers surprisingly dextrous as he curls it around the back of her neck, ties it so it drapes from her hips. By the time he’s fastened his own clothing, standing bare-chested and somehow still intimidating, the sound of laser-fire is close and loud. They wait by the table, his fingers threaded through hers, as the last of the chemical washes from him. Neither of them is armed, but Rey already knows that won’t matter.

Sometimes, the most desperate plans are the ones that work best.

**Author's Note:**

> This was based on a prompt by the illustrious [HellyJellyBean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hellyjellybean/pseuds/Hellyjellybean):
> 
> She was a gift from his Master Lord Snoke. Or so he thought. She was actually sent by his family. Every kiss brought him closer to her and closer to them. When Snoke discovers the deception he orders her execution. But can Ben kill the only woman he ever loved?""
> 
> It was supposed to be fluffy and sweet. Oops. 
> 
> In my defense, I was really stressed irl while writing this, hence the super dark undertones. But I still think it's kinda romantic because I am weird. 
> 
> Huge thanks to [NoetticEdda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoeticEdda/pseuds/NoeticEdda) for her amazing beta skills and the wonderful [Love_andbalance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Love_andbalance/pseuds/Love_andbalance) and [RedRoseWhite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedRoseWhite/pseuds/RedRoseWhite) for giving such encouragement when I thought I was going to scrap the whole fic.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading and please come say Hi on Twitter [@DenzerWriter](https://twitter.com/DenzerWriter) where I am much less scary that this story would imply! :-)


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